Recovery of gold from mature dumps by thiourea leaching

Tajikistan has a large amount of gold-bearing dumps making up - 18 tons in gold equivalent. These dumps are tails of amalgamation and cyanidation processes obtained in the processing of ores from the largest deposit in Tajikistan - Tarorskoe and a number of adjacent deposits - Jilau, Khirskhon, Olimpiyskoe. In terms of their mineralogical composition, dumps consist primarily of quartz, feldspar, and clay minerals. Average gold content in them is quite high - 2.4 g/t. Therefore, it is feasible to involve them in processing based on the existing Joint Venture «Zarafshon» plant (Penjikent, Tajikistan) processing ores from the Tarorskoe deposit and having underutilized process capacity. These dumps require no ore preparation for processing as the cyanided gold content is 89.7 % at the existing grain size class (-0.074 mm, 58.11 %). This article presents the results of studies on gold extraction from dumps by thiourea leaching. The paper is aimed at searching for ways to reduce the consumption of an expensive component - thiourea. It was found that dump samples contain sorption-active minerals that lead to the loss of gold with tails. In this regard, it is proposed to conduct gold sorption leaching. It was established that thiourea consumption can be reduced by acid pretreatment of raw materials with Na₂SO₄ added to pulp during the thiourea leaching process. A high degree of extraction (-89 %) is achieved when loading 2 kg/t of thiourea, 7 kg/t of ferrous sulfate (III), 12 kg/t Na₂SO₄ and the initial concentration of sulfuric acid of 0.5 % (at the stage of acid pretreatment). Thus, the thiourea consumption is 0.8 kg/t. A dump processing flow chart is presented that includes the following operations: acid pretreatment, thiourea sorption leaching, desorption, reactivation, electrolysis, and melting.

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